Heading to an ATM to withdraw cash? Here’s what you should know

RBI has asked all banks to fix a limit of Rs2,000 per day per card withdrawal limit at ATMs, for all customers till 18 November.

Starting on Friday, all automated teller machines (ATMs) will open for transactions. If you are one of the many who plan to visit an ATM machine to withdraw cash, here is what you should know:

ATM transaction cost

In a circular issued on 8 November, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) advised all banks to provide all cash withdrawal transactions on their ATMs free of cost to their customers till 30 December. Following the notification from the RBI, all major banks have waived the charges for own-bank transactions. Banks such as HDFC Bank Ltd, Axis Bank Ltd and ICICI Bank Ltd said that if their customers transacted on own-bank ATMs, the transaction will be free of cost till 30 December—in case of some banks it is till 31 December. Banks charge you a transaction fee if you transacted more than five times at your own bank’s ATM.

Here remember that if you transact in other bank ATMs, you still have to pay a transaction cost beyond a certain limit. Hence, only three transactions will be free at other bank’s ATMs in six metro cities—Mumbai, New Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata, Bengaluru and Hyderabad. For non-metro users, the number of free transactions at other bank ATM will remain at five.

Hence, visit your own bank’s ATM till 30 December to avoid any charges for ATM transactions.

Cash withdrawal limit

RBI has asked all banks to fix a limit of Rs2,000 per day per card withdrawal limit at ATMs, for all customers till 18 November. ICICI Bank says that customers will be able to withdraw money from ATMs in Rs100 notes. Also remember that there is an overall cap of Rs20,000 per card per week. It may take some time for consumers to get Rs2,000 notes from all ATMs. “Every ATM has ‘cassettes’ which can hold a particular denomination. To be able to provide Rs2,000 denomination notes, the cassettes have to be configured, which will take time. Hence, for now you will get only Rs100 notes,” said Ramaswamy Venkatachalam, managing director–India and South Asia, FIS. Cassettes are small removable boxes that hold all the cash inside an ATM. The cash withdrawal limit will be increased to Rs4,000 per day per card from 19 November. For more cash withdrawal, multiple cards will come in handy. But if you are a one debit card user, you will only get Rs2,000 per day till 18 November.